INTRODUCTION

I was born at 3h40, in France in the 7th arrondissement of Lyon, on Monday 20th October in the year 1969, 50 years ago. This is how long it will have taken me to establish this small-scale factory in Nantes, making objects and pieces of furniture.

Dissatisfied by our modern world and mindful of the work our ancestors have bequeathed us, I began research on what links shapes, numbers and types of material, in order to create items used in everyday life. To transform into a heightened sensorial experience every instant spent in each room of the house.

The geometrical complexity Nature contains is a source of kindly inspiration that makes sense in my own understanding and enables me to detect the secret of the material by the form it takes. “We only see clearly with the heart; what is essential is invisible to the eye”, wrote Antoine de Saint-Exupéry in his book “Le Petit Prince” in 1943.

Create with this awareness, like a child playing in the forest, to imagine and invent fabulous stories and start to “dream” of travelling through the physical and imaginary limits of matter and time. This means rediscovering the sacred bond that links us to the origins of infinity.

PY MANUFACTURE came into existence from this poetic idea of focusing on an object of everyday use and bringing together artists and craftsmen capable of making it with natural materials the earth lends us.

Alive like the sun, the moon and the whole of the universe which rules us, the earth that welcomes us must be respected, honoured and glorified for all that it bestows us and for everything it expects from us. Listen to a stone, gently stroke wood like a skin, see the brightness of sunlight through the translucent edge of marble, feel the warmth of polished copper with its thousand reflections of light; these are the first results I invite you to come and share with me thanks to this first collection of eight objects, 2018-2019.

THE APPROACH

Create with Nature is the only activity to which humans should devote themselves on Earth, to live here in harmony with it. Acting in this way, we will rediscover the sense of things and a reason for living here.

Extract raw materials from the soil with respect and gratitude, then find skilled hands that can create objects in accordance with a desired form are two stages added to the design to make a living object that contributes to enhancing daily life by its metaphysical presence.

Producing items of fine quality in small quantity allows us to become conscious of our movements and our body, by connecting ourselves with awareness to the object and to perceive all the value we grant to it, as we do also to human beings. It therefore becomes alive and reassuring. Even at rest, it contributes to our interior world and to the spiritual development of the occupants of the house.

Copper and marble are materials our elders used for the purposes of preservation and for cleaning certain places, because they used the electromagnetic virtues and the wavelengths specific to each element.

Just as the energy contained in wood radiates in the direction of the movement of sap and guides us to a shape for its use, each material has its specific qualities which must be used wisely.

The fact of holding in one’s hands a comb made of bone, used 1 000 years before our era, throws us for an instant into a far deeper reality, that of the other person who used this comb and it creates a link beyond the frontiers of reality.

Ancient artefacts are not beautiful simply because they are old, but because there remains within them the presence of our ancestors, their beliefs and their intelligence of linking the shape of the object to the beauty of the material and the meticulous work of each movement of the hand : the mind and the body uniting to give a soul to the object, thus an inalienable and immeasurable value that influences our daily life. Many stones speak and explain mysteries to those who take the time to listen to them and read the work that hands have written upon and within them.

PY MANUFACTURE

Established in 2019, this aim of this company is to design and make manufactured items of high value thanks to the choice of materials and the craftsmen who transform them. There are two economic virtues of this small-scale factory : firstly to create a link between designers and craftsmen, and secondly to capitalise on ideas to make them a reality by allowing an encounter between the initial material and those who transform it into an object.

The ultimate aim is to manufacture each object made-to- measure, with dimensions adapted to clients’ requests.

Why have a small-scale factory in the 21st century ?

Because this corresponds to an urgent need to manufacture rationally and intelligently, working in close connection with Nature, while being free to think in accordance with ancestral know-how. The use of intelligence and the dexterity of hands to transform material distinguish this work from all other forms of current industrial production.

This production is part of the cycle of seasons and the course followed incessantly by the sun and moon during the calendar year. This is perhaps why the forms produced seem timeless. They are either solar or lunar, just like the brand name PY, which is part of the convergence of these two cycles, as if a reminder of the celestial memory of matter.

PRODUCTION OF VALUE

Created manually, using selected natural materials, guaranteed by the brand “PY”, the items sold are filled with high value, added to the excellence of the work produced.

Each production is sold with the dual aim of corresponding to a specific use and of creating technical and artistic value.

Elegance of design, choice of raw materials and quality of fabrication are the three most important principles in the production of each of these pieces, unique by their history..

Each package contains a certificate of authenticity numbered by order of dispatch and signed by hand, guaranteeing the origin and characteristics of the piece purchased.